#2. There should be a warning on the label about possible loss of smell. That is a responsible thing to do. People need to be informed about possible side effects.

#3. There is no telling how this product was used — how often, how far up the nose, etc.

#4. Even in an approved medication, there are people who are going to be sensitive or allergic to an ingredient. My dad cannot have IVP dyes for kidney tests — he discovered his allergy to iodine in the middle of a test which had to be curtailed. I cannot eat shellfish. Millions of people cannot eat peanuts, chocolate, gluten, etc. – does that mean there should be no availability of said substance or food for the rest of the population?

#5. I feel for those who had smell loss. I had been using Claritin/loratadine for years for allergy relief. But this year, after about 3 weeks of use, I had palpitations and feelings of fainting. This triggered several visits to a cardiologist, medical tests, a month-long portable heartbeat monitor, etc. But what I noticed was this: when I stopped taking loratadine for an unrelated reason, my symptoms stopped. I checked it out online (no mention of heart related side effects on the bottle) and sure enough, there in the rare-but-serious category, were the very side effects I was experiencing. And there was an report from an Australian medical journal of a women who suffered “torsades de pointes” – a sometimes fatal arrhythmia that caused the antihistamine Seldane to be pulled off the market in the 80s. Both loratadine and Seldane were FDA approved, folks — so there’s no guarantee that FDA approved drugs are any safer than those that are not.

#6 This is a slippery slope that can extend to freedoms for people to buy supplements and vitamins so they can enjoy quality self health care. The way things are now with HMOs and insurance, the medical profession doesn’t have the time to really understand its patients and so things are done according to formula (don’t even get me started on how LDL cholesterol is calculated!). People who want some input into their health may lose that right if the FDA starts wielding power on alternative medications.

Doug said, “This is one area where the government should stay out. If I am willing to give up smell it should be up to me to make this decision.”
Well, maybe this would be reasonable if the people using this product knew that they had a significant chance of losing their smell, but the manufacturer denied that there was a problem. Losing one’s sense of smell is a big deal–much bigger than having a cold.